If you enjoy beer the rest of the year, there's no reason to abandon your favorite libation during the holidays. Just as there are celebratory sparkling wines and special vintages, craft beers have their own lines of limited, seasonal and anniversary releases. Here are a few special beers to keep in mind for the holiday feasts ahead.

Seasonal beers

The best thing about seasonal and holiday beers is that they offer beer makers a chance to let their talent and imagination run wild. Holiday beers tend to be bold, complex and impressive.

Anchor's annual "Our Special Ale" -- a Christmas Ale -- is my Thanksgiving favorite. Some people find it too spicy, but I think it's just right for turkey and the trimmings. Although the recipe changes each year, the 2012 version is spicy and complex, with a lot going on.

A close second is the welcome return of Lagunitas Brown Shugga, which was absent from the market last year while Lagunitas was installing a new brew house. I don't know if it's because I was missing it so much, but it's tasting better than ever this year.

For big, hoppy beers, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, now made with fresh hops, is hard to beat, though Marin's Hoppy Holidaze is also quite tasty. For dark beers, Port Brewing's Santa's Little Helper is a terrific Imperial Stout.

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Special kudos are due to this year's Winter Solstice, from Anderson Valley Brewing. For years, I've thought the vanilla flavors dominated that beer too much; now, it's been dialed back and the new version is a delight, with nice peppermint and other spices balancing the vanillin, making it a much more rounded, enjoyable beer to drink.

Anniversary beers

Firestone Walker released its 16th anniversary beer, known simply as XVI, earlier this month. It's a barrel-aged beer, created by local brewers and winemakers and blended from eight different component beers and 226 barrels, including bourbon, brandy and tequila barrels.

"This project is all about creating flavors through blending, and no one knows blending better than a winemaker," brewmaster Matt Brynildson says. "This beer is a testament to the fact that incredible flavors can be created through blending, and that in certain moments, with special people and exceptional raw materials, the result of the blend can far exceed the sum of its parts."

The blend is 42 percent stout, so it's a fairly dark beer with 36 IBUs, which is roughly the same as the average pale ale, as measured on the International Bittering Units scale. The blend includes established Firestone Walker beers such as Double DBA and Wookey Jack.

Also worth checking out: Jewbelation Sweet 16, another 16th anniversary beer, this one from San Francisco-based Shmaltz Brewing. I'm not sure how long they can keep this up, but so far each year's anniversary beer has used a corresponding number of ingredients and alcohol content. Sweet 16 is brewed with 16 different hops, 16 malts and weighs in at 16 percent alcohol by volume.

Shmaltz characterizes the beer as a "complex, enormous brown ale with a dynamic labyrinth of multilayered flavors," and that's a fair description. It's one seriously big, tasty sipping beer, but it's not for the faint of heart. It's available in a 750 ml bottle and also as part of special holiday gift pack that includes eight different He'Brew beers, a custom glass and instructions on how to build your own beer menorah.

Gaelebration

And finally, one more special release beer celebrates the 150th anniversary of Moraga's Saint Mary's College and its beloved Gaels. Brendan Moylan, class of 1983 and owner of Moylan's Brewery and Restaurant in Novato, ordered up a Gael-E-Bration Ale to salute his alma mater's big birthday. Moylan's brewmaster Denise Jones used Simcoe, Cascade and Ahtanum hops along with four different malts to create this American pale ale, which is available in 22-ounce bottles as well as kegs.